I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

Man, the Washington Post is really setting itself up for some severe criticism when they finally end up endorsing Terry McAuliffe. It’s like they’re providing us with all the information we need to discredit said endorsement ahead of time:

…Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D), is listed in a recent confidential memorandum to prospective investors as GreenTech Automotive’s “chairman emeritus.” The 70-page document includes photographs and references to McAuliffe’s close ties to former president Bill Clinton. It recounts his political pedigree in detail, from serving as finance director for Jimmy Carter’s 1980 presidential reelection campaign to breaking fundraising records for the Democratic Party and chairing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

There’s a good bit here of interest in this surprisingly hostile Washington Post article on Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe* and his horrible, awful, no good kiddie electric car company GreenTech, but one particular bit jumps out:

VEDP [Virginia Economic Development Partnership] officials were also uneasy about GreenTech’s heavy reliance on EB-5 financing. A top GreenTech executive told the VEDP that each year, 20,000 Chinese entrepreneurs immigrate using the EB-5 program.

“If we obtain a fraction of that market alone, the funding will be substantial,” Yi “Gary” Tang, a former mortgage-backed securities trader who is now executive vice president of finance at GreenTech, told VEDP officials in an e-mail.

Yet the maximum number of foreign entrepreneurs authorized by Congress is 10,000 a year, and the Government Accountability Office found that many fewer participated. Even after a surge of interest in recent years, a USCIS ombudsman said, about 7,400 visas were issued in 2012.

…So, basically, the Washington Post is reporting that McAuliffe’s company lied to the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2009.

[pause]

You know, I may just be one of these new media guys and all of that, and I certainly didn’t go to J-school: but shouldn’t you lead an article with a revelation like that? (more…)

…there are days when Mr. Wang says he wishes he had never gone into business with a politically connected partner. “I learned a lot of things,” he said. “Politicians or people with political backgrounds are dangerous to business.”

Bolding mine – and get that up on a campaign ad, Ken Cuccinelli. I admit that it’s a bit tricky for the Attorney General to do so – he’s a politician himself – but, shoot: Republicans officially agree with McAuliffe’s own partner that politics and business don’t really mix well. As the last five years of Barack Obama’s crony corporatist capitalism have made blisteringly clear.

Via Instapundit comes this report from Reuters that “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas, who has been nominated to be the deputy secretary of Homeland Security – and who could soon run the department – is under investigation by the department’s inspector general.”

Why is Mayorkas being investigated? Because he allegedly broke ethics rule by arranging for an ‘investor visa’ for Gulf Coast Funds Management.

Jim Geraghty over at NRO has an absolutely must-read story about a really problematic – for Terry McAuliffe, current* Democratic nominee for governor in Virginia – story about GreenTech Automotive. For those who don’t remember, GreenTech is the electric glorified golf cart car company that McAuliffe loudly trumpeted as being part of his job-creation record… and quietly divested from, withouttelling anybody thad he had. This was a bit interesting, given that McAuliffe’s candidacy is based around his business experience; so there was an expectation that another shoe was due to drop.

And it has. Let me introduce all y’all to a phrase with connotations: “visa for sale.” Although I personally would call it “pay-for-play visas.” Rolls off of the tongue better. (more…)

In October 2010, Terry McAuliffe touted his business credentials as a predictor that his latest venture, GreenTech Automotive, would be a success. “We’re in to make money, no question about it. In all the businesses— I’m happy to say I’ve started 25— they’ve all made money.”

To kick-start GreenTech Automotive in Mississippi, the Virginia Democrat has sought funding through federal EB-5 immigration visas. In exchange for investments of $500,000, foreign nationals can gain U.S. citizenship for themselves and their families.

But the EB-5 system has been heavily criticized for its lack of transparency and lackadaisical enforcement. McAuliffe’s venture is seen as a particularly bad fit for the alien-investor program that’s supposed to create U.S. jobs.

[snip]

“EB-5 is good for funding certain kinds of projects, but it’s not appropriate for this type of large-scale, long-term funding,” said Michael Gibson, managing partner of U.S. Advisors, a Florida-based research and investment firm knowledgeable about the program.